by J C Briggs
Rogers came in. ‘Visitor, sir. Mr O’Malley.’
Dear God, Jones thought, Bridie’s tossed him out. Sent him back to me, and he’s come to haunt me — he’ll be my pensioner for life. He imagined himself condemned to a life sentence of Michael’s memoirs of a tramping man, of the old, old days, of that blessed crayture, Bridie, and all their glorious youth. Could he refuse to see him? Say he was busy. No, Michael would wait — until the end of the world, and after.
He looked up. Rogers was staring at him, wondering at the anguish on his face.
‘He looks all right.’
Jones’s eyes narrowed. ‘When you say all right…’
‘Decent — clean, shaved, barbered — handsome, ain’t ’e?’
‘Clothes?’
‘Course, sir, e’d hardly —’
‘No — I know — how’s he dressed?’
‘Overcoat — new. Good boots, hat — quite a swell.’
Well, that sounded promising. Perhaps Bridie had provided for him — even if it was with only the means to go away again. Still, he thought, what does he want with me?
‘Shall I send him in?’
‘Yes, I suppose so.’
Michael O’Malley was, indeed, transformed. Not exactly a swell, but certainly respectable. And he was a handsome man when cleaned up.
‘Michael — good to see you looking better. You found Bridie, then.’
‘To be sure, I did — thanks to you.’
‘How?’
‘Did she take to me turnin’ up like the ghost of old Finn MacCool? She screamed like a banshee — sure, she didn’t believe it was me at first.’
‘She let you stay?’
‘For the time being — she’ll see, says she. Well, an’ all, I’m after thinkin’ she might be glad of a man about the place. None of us is getting any younger, Sammy, my boy.’
Sammy doubted very much Bridie’s need of a man about the place — she could take care of herself could Bridie O’Malley, the tallest woman he’d ever known. Magnificent in her way and possessed of a formidable left hook — he wondered that Michael hadn’t a black eye.
‘You didn’t tell her that.’
Michael smiled. ‘I did not. I told her that she hadn’t changed from the beautiful wife who was ever in me head and me heart.’
‘Wife was it? You didn’t tell her about —’
‘Bejasus, Sammy, are ye a madman? Deed, I did not — ’tis not the kind o’ truth you tell to a woman. Besides, the other, she might be dead by now — it was a long time ago. Let sleepin’ dogs lie — well, cat, in her case.’
‘You’re probably right. So, what brings you here — a message from Bridie, is it?’
‘I came to tell ye, I’ve seen him.’
‘Who?’
‘Your murderer — the man who came into me lodgings.’
‘You’re sure? Where?’
‘Old Pye Street.’
‘What were you doing down there?’
‘I’d a fancy for a walk — there was a deal o’ scrubbin’ and polishin’ at Bridie’s. It was a look she gave me — I was in the way. I took meself down The Strand to Whitehall. I thought to go in the Park, but I took a wrong turn. I was standin’, lookin’ about me, when I sees a couple comin’ towards me. I noticed the lady — an’ she was a lady, to be sure — smart, in brown with a bonnet that had a bright blue ribbon — ’twas like the flash of a kingfisher’s wing in the grey o’ the day. That’s why I noticed it. And, she was a very pretty woman. Well, they was passin’ me an’ I looked at the gent. Right in the eye, an’ I knew him. ’Twas only a moment. I turned an’ walked away quick as a fish in water — but ’twas him, Sammy, sure an’ it was.’
It might have been, thought Jones — but, then it might not. What was Sefton doing down in Westminster? Pye Street. Devil’s Acre — so it was called in Dickens’s Household Words. Jones had read the article about the poverty and squalor there and the work of the missionary who’d opened a Ragged School. He’d been down there years ago. It was a filthy, notorious place — and a woman — a lady. Was Sefton married then? Was that why he’d not given himself up?
Michael saw the doubts and questions chasing across Jones’s face. ‘I’m certain, Sammy. I could swear on the Good Book.’
‘You didn’t see where they went?’
‘No, I didn’t look back, didn’t want to draw attention to meself.’
‘Which way were they going — towards the Abbey?’
‘No, the other way. I was standin’ outside a little shop. There were some boxes of mangy old vegetables outside.’
‘Well, I’m obliged to you, Michael, and I’ll follow it up when I’ve thought about it a bit more. You’ll give my best wishes to Bridie?’
‘Deed I will, Sammy. I’ll bid ye farewell.’
When he had gone, Jones sat and thought. A slender thread — the lightest of gossamer threads — leading, perhaps, to a murderer. But it’s a warren down there, a labyrinth of alleys and courts. It’ll be the devil’s own job. And, he might just have been passing through… But why would you pass through Pye Lane and its environs with a lady? A place of indescribable infamy and pollution — a moral plague spot, the piece in Household Words had described it — worse than any other part of town.
How to find Sefton? He’d have to take Rogers and Stemp — in plain clothes. Could he use Scrap? Too dangerous, probably, though Scrap in his disguise as an urchin might be safer than they would be. But, where to look in that maze of alleys? That was the devil of it.
Rogers came in with Dickens who had come to tell Jones that he had made progress with regard to Miranda’s future. However, Jones forestalled him.
‘Michael O’Malley said he saw Sefton with a lady — a lady in a bonnet with a blue ribbon — like the flash of a kingfisher’s wing as the eloquent Mr O’Malley put it.’
‘Good Lord! Where was this poetical bonnet?’
‘In Old Pye Street.’
‘Devil’s Acre.’
‘The very same. And I wonder what Sefton was doing with a lady in that nest of iniquity.’
‘Perhaps she wasn’t a lady.’
‘Michael assured me that she was. Pretty woman, too — in a brown outfit. Smart, he said.’
‘Unusual down there.’
‘Could He have a wife?’ asked Rogers.
‘I wondered if that’s why he hasn’t given himself up. But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it is a lead — a tenuous one, I admit, but since we have no other notion of where he might be, I had thought of looking. But where to start, other than lurking about Pye Street in disguise?’
‘You read that article in Household Words last June?’ Jones nodded. ‘Well, you’ll know about the missionary, Andrew Walker, and how he started up the Ragged School in Pye Street — the premises of The Old Tun pub were converted from a kind of Fagin’s den to a school. We could start with him. Of course, he might know nothing about Sefton or his lady, but we could ask. Someone might know of a doctor.’
‘Right. Now, Rogers, I think you should change out of your uniform — get down to Zeb Scruggs’s shop and borrow some suitable clothes. Get a ragged coat with pockets — for this.’ He took out of his drawer a flintlock pistol and handed it to Rogers. ‘Just in case. I thought you could take Scrap — in his disguise, too. Just a man with a ragged child. Look for a smart lady in brown, and the bonnet. Follow, but don’t go in too deep. Keep to the streets. We’ll wait for you at the shop and you can follow Mr Dickens and me to the school.’
‘Keepin’ our distance. Then we hang about.’
‘Exactly.’
Rogers left them.
‘Charles, I didn’t ask — did you come for something special?’
‘I did — to tell you that I have a possible place for Miranda.’
On their way to the shop in Crown Street, Dickens told him his news.
‘Some time ago, the Bishop of Cape Town, a friend of Miss Coutts, wrote to her about a clergyman who was coming home to En
gland, a man who had provided a home for emigrant girls sent by Miss Coutts. And this is the important bit — their only daughter died out there in the Cape. His wife wanted to come home. Miss Coutts will tell him Miranda’s history — they are good people and it is likely they will understand her background. Miss Coutts will ask if they would be willing to give Miranda a home — not as a servant, but as the friendless daughter of a protestant clergyman. I hope to hear from her soon. The Reverend Mr Woodhouse is back now and living in Devon.’
‘Good — very good. Out of London. That’ll be better. And a home — she must have a home. I hope these good people will take her. Whether or not we find Sefton, it is time I went to the Assistant Commissioner with my evidence. The death of Brimstone by stabbing makes it clear that Miranda did not kill Plume. She must be released.’
‘I think so, too, but she will need looking after until I have word from Miss Coutts.’
‘Elizabeth has thought of that. Mrs Feak is willing to nurse her. Elizabeth took her to see Miranda. She will know what is best for the girl until you can make arrangements. Now let us find your missionary.’
Chapter 37: Devil’s Acre
From the stationery shop in Crown Street, Dickens and Jones, followed by Rogers and Scrap, made their way down St. Martin’s Lane, through Charing Cross, and into Whitehall. They passed behind the Houses of Parliament where night after night the lawmakers sat deliberating, a stone’s throw from the degradation of the streets behind them. The towers of the great Abbey of Westminster looked down, indifferently, Dickens thought. God’s Acre — he remembered the phrase from one of Longfellow’s poems. This is the place where human harvests grow, the poet had written of some peaceful burial ground where each grave was consecrated by the blessed name. Not here. Not here where the black tide of human misery rolled its filthy waves up to the very walls of the Abbey. A wilderness of dirt, rags and hunger — and crime of every kind. Devil’s Acre.
It was but a step from the Abbey walls into Dean Street and then to Old Pye Street. Dickens and Jones found their way to the Ragged School and went in while Rogers and Scrap loitered further down the street in a doorway by the grocer’s shop with vegetable boxes outside. A scruffy man with his boy in the hand-me-down trousers of a military man and boots far too big for him. Doing nothing. Nobody noticed. But Scrap’s eyes were everywhere, looking for that bonnet with the blue ribbon. There were very few pretty bonnets in Old Pye Street. Ragged shawls; greasy caps; battered bonnets; squashed toppers; billycock hats; the odd wretched straw hat, relic of a long ago summer, mostly the colour of mud, all passed by, but never a glimpse of blue.
Inside the school, Mrs Tudge, the charwoman, informed them that Mr Walker was out.
‘Police are ye?’ she asked, looking at Jones with knowing eyes.
‘Yes, we’re looking for a lady.’
‘I doubt yer’ll find one ’ereabouts.’ Mrs Tudge swabbed her floor as far as the Superintendent’s shiny boots.
‘A smart lady in a brown bonnet with a bright blue ribbon.’ Jones refused to move his feet away from the mop.
‘Oh, that lady — she is a lady, Gawd bless her.’ She stopped mopping and looked up at Jones. Something in her eyes softened.
‘You know her name?’
‘Mrs Shepherd — Mary Shepherd.’
‘Does she live round here?’
‘At the ’orspital down Perkins Rent.’
‘Hospital?’
‘’S’wot we call it — free ’orspital for women an’ kiddies. Run by Doctor Shepherd an’ ’is lady. Saints they ’is, an’ no police can say otherwise. What you want ’em fer?’ Mrs Tudge was suspicious now.
‘Only enquiries. I’m not after them.’
‘Oh, awright — Perkins Rent’s a step or two back down the street. Right turn.’
They left her to her mopping.
‘A lady, certainly, but not his wife,’ observed Dickens.
‘And a hospital — a charity hospital.’
‘The good doctor again?’
‘Maybe — let’s find out, shall we?’
Over the road they saw Rogers and Scrap. They told them what they had learned and walked down to Perkins Rent. Jones wanted to have a look at the place. How to get in, and, just as important, how to get out. Sefton might be there — he might make a run for it, and that meant Rogers finding a back entrance he could watch. Scrap would wait at the end of the street.
‘If he comes out, just watch where he goes. Don’t follow him into any alleys, Scrap.’
They found the hospital. There was a sign outside indicating that it was a hospital for women and children as Mrs Tudge had told them. It was established in an old storehouse, and there were shabby looking sheds on either side, hemming it in. Dickens and Scrap melted into a doorway opposite while Jones and Rogers went along the street to see if there was any way round the back.
Jones came back alone and Scrap was sent back down the street to wait in another doorway. Time to go in. Dickens felt his heart jumping — to see Sefton, perhaps, after all this time. To come face to face with the murderer.
The front door opened into a waiting room with a sanded floor, whitewashed walls, and some hard chairs upon which were sitting some women and some poor, starving-looking children — patiently waiting their turn. A comical looking dog sat in the centre of the room, gazing at the patients as if he were assessing their chances. A door opened and out came a pretty, dark-haired woman wearing a white apron.
Jones stepped forward just before she went to speak to one of the patients. ‘Mrs Shepherd?’
‘Yes. Can I help you?’
‘I hope so. I am Superintendent Jones from Bow Street, and this —’
She smiled, a sweet, shy smile, as she looked at Dickens. ‘I know who this is. Mr Dickens, is it not? How extraordinary. I have read your books, but I never expected to meet you, and you have come to see our work here, to write about us?’
She looked so eager, so hopeful, that Dickens wished that they had come on any errand but theirs. He could imagine the distress on that sweet, innocent face when they had to tell her what they wanted and why. He glanced at Jones. He didn’t want to tell her either.
‘Mrs Shepherd,’ Jones began. She turned her fine eyes to him. She reminded him of Elizabeth — dark-haired and lovely. It made it harder. ‘I am looking for Doctor Sefton — in connection with a — a case I am investigating.’ Perhaps he wasn’t there, perhaps, she could tell them where he was, and they could leave her in all her innocence. But, no.
‘Doctor Sefton — you mean Doctor Will — that’s what we call him. Why, he is here, but I cannot get him for you. He is performing an operation. A young woman — her baby. We do not know if either will live, but, if anyone can save them, Doctor Will is the man. Perhaps you might leave a message for him to contact you.’
‘It is urgent. I am afraid we must wait. Is there somewhere?’
‘Yes, yes, we live upstairs. I’ll show you up, but please be very quiet. My husband is sleeping. Let me just get one of the other nurses to see to these patients.’
She came back from another room with a young woman of about twenty, who smiled at them, too.
‘Come with me, Poodles,’ she said to the dog.
Then they went upstairs past all sorts of winches which must have been used for the hoisting of goods. Heavy feet and heavy weights had trodden these stairs, and there were inconvenient bulks and beams round which to manoeuvre. It was old, but all was airy, sweet and clean. Dickens could hear the scratch of Poodles’s claws on the stairs. Mrs Shepherd pointed out the two wards where they could see children in beds. Poodles went in to see his patients.
Mrs Shepherd turned round. ‘Poodles is very popular with the children, especially. He understands them — he was a poor, starving orphan once, himself.’
Worse and worse, thought Dickens.
‘In there is our small operating room. Doctor Will is in there now.’
There was a window in the door; Dickens looked i
n as Mrs Shepherd and Jones went on to another door further along the corridor. He saw the woman on the bed, a sheet covering her from the waist. Her legs were bent at the knees. A nurse, another young woman was holding her hand, but the woman was quiet. The doctor was on the other side of the bed, leaning over his patient. As if he sensed that someone was watching, Doctor Will looked up to the window. His eyes were dark, Dickens noticed as they held his for a few seconds. The doctor glanced at his patient, nodded at Dickens, and went back to his work. Dickens noticed the white bandage on his right hand.
What did that nod mean? He was expecting us, thought Dickens. He was telling me that he isn’t going to run. He’s telling me to wait. So, that was Doctor Sefton — he had gained an impression of dark eyes and a flow of dark hair, a pale, angular face — a suffering face. Not the face of a murderer, but he was. Dickens knew it — by that nod.
He went on through an open door into Mrs Shepherd’s sitting room. He noted a piano, drawing materials on a desk, books, some china and glassware on a sideboard. There was a cheerful fire blazing. It might have been the parlour of any lady’s house, yet Doctor and Mrs Shepherd had made their home here in Devil’s Acre. With every qualification to lure them away, with youth and accomplishments and tastes and habits that could have no response in any breast near them, close begirt by every repulsive circumstance inseparable from such a neighbourhood, here they dwelt. Perhaps he could write about them — tell the world what nobility may be found in the meanest neighbourhood. Those sleek, over-fed deliberators over there in Parliament ought to take note of this.